Visita Iglesia 2012 – Churches You May Want to Consider

During Lent, we observe a Catholic tradition of visiting various churches to recite and meditate on the Way of the Cross, a practice more popularly known as Visita Iglesia. We normally visit seven churches and recite two stations of the cross in each church, although there were years when we covered more tha seven churches.

Visita Iglesia is not just a religious experience. It also provides a historical and cultural perspective esepcially if you are visiting old churches.

In today's post. l list combinations of Churches you may want to consider during your Visita Iglesia this Maundy Thursday. Have a good day!

Visita Iglesia on Foot

If you live in one of the neighborhoods around the Old Manila area, you can just walk around these set of churches. Of course, make sure you have a good pair of walking shoes, umbrella or hats, drinking water, hand towels and an extra shirt or two. You can cover at least seven of these churches within one day. Watch out and observe the various Hijos de Nazarenos doing their Visita Iglesias in these churches during Maundy Thursday. These churches are:

The Twin Churches of Bustillos: Our Lady of Loreto Church and The Church of St Anthony de Padua

​Basilica Minore De San Sebastian at San Sebastian

Abbey of Our Lady of Monserrat Church at San Beda

St. Jude the Thaddeus Shrine near Malacañang

National Shrime of St Michael and the Archangels near Malacañang

The Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene at Quaipo

FEU Chapel at the FEU Campus

Santisimo Rosario Parish Church at the University of Santo Tomas

San Agustin Church – Immaculate Conception Parish

Manila Cathedral – Basilica of the Immaculate Concepcion

Sta Cruz Church at Sta Cruz, Manila

Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz – the Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish more popularly known as the Binondo Church

The Pasig-Mandaluyong Churches

These are the set of churches near our place of residence. After visitng our Parish Church, San Antonio Abad, the route and set of churches to visit are largely determined by the availability of parking spaces near the church grounds. But we normally select from among the following churches, chapels and oratories:

These are churches located along the a strecth starting with the UP Chapel in Diliman to the Shrine of St Therese at Newport City in Pasay, then to churches along the Roxas Boulevard all the way to Tondo as the end point. It is a combination of modern and heritage churches. You start out with the UP Chapel which showcases the works of various national artist and end at the Church of the Sto Nino of Tondo where various old-time residents of Tondo go back every January to attend its feast. The list are as follows:

UP Chapel/Church of the Holy Sacrifice (UP Diliman, QC)

Sta Maria de la Strada Church, along Katipunan near the entrance gate to La Vista Subdivision

Church of the Gesu, in Ateneo de Manila University

Sta Clara Monastery Church, Katipunan Avenue

St. Padre Pio Chapel in Libis

Christ the King Church at Greenmeadows

Shrine of St Therese, Doctor of the Church,right across the main entrace of NAIA III

National Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual help – Baclaran Church, along Roxas Blvd

Church of Jesus the Way the Turth and the Light, near Mall of Asia

Church of Our Lady of Remedies – Malate Church at MH del Pilar, Malate

Archdiocesan Shrine of Nuestra Senora de Guia, – Ermita Church in Ermita, Manila

Sto Nino de Tondo Church, Tondo

The East Road Churches of Laguna and Rizal:

If you have a whole day to spare and do not mind driving around the towns of the lake's shorelines, you may want to try the various churches around the Laguna lake. You have 3 options on where to start the drive tracing the twons around the lake (1) the SLEX-Calamba route; (2) the Taytay-Angono route; or, (3)start with Antipolo Church (which is strictly not within the East Road), drive to Teresa and then Morong. In our case, we avoided the traffic at the Angono stretch and took the Antipolo Church as our first stop. From early morning to around 8pm during one Maundy Thrusday, we managed to visit the following churches:

Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, Antipolo

St Jerome Parish Church, Morong

Our Lady of Candelaria Parish Church, Mabitac

St Peter of Alcantara Parish Church, Pakil

St James the Apostle Parish Church of Paete

St Gregory the Great Parish Church of Majayjay

St John the Baptist Church of Liliw

And here are pictures of these Laguna-Rizal churches in Maundy Thursday, 2010